Thoughts Of A Mother
by NickyFan
Summary: For being able to overcome painful experiences and nightmares you need someone to help you through your pain, who will always be on your side, no matter how much you change because of it all. Nick is lucky to have someone like that in his life.


Title: Thoughts Of A Mother

Author: NickyFan

Disclaimer: All rights belong to CBS and their writers.

Summary: For being able to overcome painful experiences and nightmares you need someone to help you through your pain, who will always be on your side, no matter how much you change because of it all. Nick is lucky to have someone like that in his life.

Notes: Finally my second published story :-) I would like to hear what you think about it :-) English isn't my first language, so I hope you have a little bit patience with me... ;-)

I wrote this story for the fourth round of _Nick Fic Song Challenge_ on _TalkCSI_.

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****Thoughts of a Mother**

The sun was shining through the windows of the room as Jillian Stokes opened the door with a big cardboard box in her arms. She had gotten it from the attic and put it down on the desk which was standing right in front of a window. It had been there as long as she could remember and would stay right there for years to come. The air in the room smelled stale, like there hadn't been anyone in here for some time. A slight fresh breeze came through the open windows and brushed past the curtains softly. It was a beautiful day and since she had the afternoon off she wanted to start with a special birthday present for one of her children.

Her youngest son Nick would have his birthday soon, and she wanted to create a photo album for him with pictures of him from all over the years. Her husband Bill shook his head with a smile as she said she would start with it now because it was still so much time until Nick's next birthday, but Jillian thought one could never start soon enough because she wanted this present to be perfect for her 'little boy' as she always liked to call him.

So there she was, standing in the middle of Nick's old room at the Stokes ranch in Dallas, Texas, with a big cardboard box full of pictures and accessories from her youngest son's childhood. She knew she would need some time to go through the whole box, since she was sure it would bring up many memories…memories she thought she had forgotten over the years.

She wanted to use Nick's old room for her work since it was the place her youngest slept in as long as he was living with them. It was a task she set herself, to create photo albums for all her children, and Nick was the last one of the bunch to get his personal album. She couldn't help but to smile as she thought of what her boy would say when he unwrapped the special present. He would be at a loss for words, like always when things really meant something to him. But she would see it in his brown eyes; eyes that looked so similar to hers. They would tell her how thankful he was and how much he liked it. And then he would smile, and especially for that smile she would book a flight to Las Vegas to give him his present personally. She loved to see him smile. It warmed her up from the inside when he was happy and had the same look on his face as his dad had when he was smiling.

She took a look around the room. It was clean and neat. She always made sure it was in case Nick came home for a few days like she hoped he would. She missed having him around. He was so far away from her, and she often needed to remind herself that her 'little boy' was an adult now and didn't need an overprotective mom harassing him with phone calls. Nick would never say something like that, but she didn't even want him to think like that about her.

Everything in the room was like it had been years before when Nick left the ranch to live and work in Las Vegas. She couldn't bring herself to use his room otherwise, and so he would always get his old room back when he came home for Christmas, New Year's, or big family parties. She took the box and sat on the bed, putting the box beside her.

The first thing she found as she opened the box was an old teddy bear. It was very ragged and its fur wasn't completely there anymore, but she could still see her little boy cuddling his beloved stuffed animal. Nick couldn't sleep without his teddy bear at night when he was little. They always needed to make sure he had his bear in his little arms before they bid him goodnight and switched the lights off. She smiled at the memory and hoped to find a photo of Nick with his bear that she could use for the album.

Laying the bear beside the box she started her search for photos. Another smile appeared on her face as she found a picture of her Nicky on his first school day. He had been so proud to be finally able to go like all his older siblings. She could see the big grin on his face with his two front teeth missing and eyes shining like little suns as he carried his schoolbag proudly on his little shoulders. She had thought he wouldn't be strong enough to carry the bag, since he had always been so scrawny as a kid, mere skin and bones. No matter what she fed him and how much he ate, he stayed like that. But he wasn't weak. His hidden strength surprised them all, like his insatiable appetite. She would use that photo for his album, so she laid it down on the desk.

A few seconds later she found another one: Nick together with his brother in front of their ranch. Bill had taken this picture of her two boys. Nick had been around 6 and his brother around 15. Nicky was always looking up to his brother and his dad. He literally did so in that picture, and his brother had a hand on his shoulder. Jillian immediately remembered her youngest son's mop of dark brown hair. He always had hair as thick as his father's but with her hair color. He was just so cute in that picture with his little legs and knobby knees in shorts, looking up into his big brother's eyes. She would take this one for the album too, and she decided to also use the one where he was sitting in the big oak tree in front of their house and the one where he was playing baseball with his father.

The longer she looked for pictures she realized that she found more pictures of Nick before he turned nine than afterward. That was easy to explain, but even more difficult to understand. He had changed so much at age nine, and she had never heard the reason why. He turned from laughing and chattering all the time to quiet and pensive and seeing him smile became something of a rarity. Jillian had seen him growing up too quickly, leaving his childhood behind him so fast that if she had closed her eyes for a second and opened them the next she would have seen an adult Nick in front of her, not her baby boy with the dark brown mop of hair and big brown eyes with the impish grin. She couldn't remember her other children growing up that fast. Maybe it was because Nick was her youngest and she just didn't realize how fast her older children left the safe nest of their parents, but deep down inside her heart she knew that it wasn't like that. With Nick it had been different than with her other kids.

She didn't know what had happened the day she lost the little chattering boy with the smile which was evident 24 hours a day… but she knew the day when it had happened. She and her husband had been out for dinner to celebrate their wedding day. The kids had stayed at home that day or had other business to attend. Some of Nick's older sisters and his brother had been out with friends and it wasn't sure if someone would be there to take care of her little boy and so she called a last minute babysitter to make sure he was looked after. Usually they never needed one… someone was always at home to look after him.

She didn't want to give the task to her older children, because she knew that they had better things to do than checking on their little brother. She didn't even think it could have been a mistake to hire a babysitter for this one evening, but later she had often lay awake at nights and thought that it maybe had been one… a mistake that had changed her baby boy forever.

She had come home with Bill that evening and had been so happy because she did have a very nice evening with her husband. It had been some time since she had been able to spend some time just with him. Bill had been paying the babysitter and she had been on her round to go checking on the kids. Like she had known, not all of them had been at home this evening, so it was a small round she had needed to go to bid them all goodnight. It was always a ritual of hers to bring her kids to bed, and as they got older she had a hard time breaking this habit. She just loved them all so much.

Nick's room had been the last one in order. As she had opened the door to his room to go over to his bed, she hadn't been prepared for what she had found. She had been prepared to praise him for behaving so well the whole evening, prepared to ask him how his evening had been should he still be awake, and prepared to give him a goodnight kiss, but definitely not prepared for what she had seen as she took a look into the room. Finding her little boy sitting in his bed with his little arms hugging his knees close to his chest and with red tear filled eyes full of fear staring right into her face had broken her heart. The light from the corridor had blinded him because his room had been so dark, and she had been able to see the tear streaks on his round cheeks. Nick had been shuddering, and she hadn't wasted any time hurrying to his side.

She had brushed the hair away from his face, and he looked up at her briefly before throwing his arms around her neck and clutching her tightly. Jillian hadn't been able to ask questions; her boy hadn't been able to talk. As soon as she had held him close he had started crying and sobbing into her shoulder. His little body had been shaking with the tremors and the bad memories that wracked his soul, and soon she had been crying with him. She had murmured shushes and 'It's okay' in his ear as she had held him tightly.

That night she knew her little Nicky had changed. She had never asked him what had happened. She never pushed him to it, not one single time in all the following nights where he came to their bed with his teddy bear in his arms and his blanket. He had been very close to animals and nature afterward. He had always loved animals, but after that night they became something like a lifeline for him. Animals weren't asking questions and weren't judging him for anything.

She always thought that her boy would tell her one day even though she already suspected what had happened. Maybe if he trusted her enough he would finally come and talk to her about it. But she wasn't angry that he didn't and realized later that it hadn't been about trust in the first place. It was his decision not to tell her, and somehow she knew deep down inside of her that there were no words needed. He had already told her everything. It was all in his eyes during the nights when she had stayed with him in her arms in his bed and had held him until he had finally cried himself to sleep.

There she sat now in his room, at the same place where she had sat that night and a single tear ran down her cheek. Nick had lost a part of his innocence that night, and she had lost faith in herself as a mother. Feelings of guilt had eaten at her for years, and then it was Nick himself who had shown her finally that she must have done something right, that she hadn't failed. Her little boy became a strong, brave man who lived for getting justice for people who were, like him, victims of the worst of crimes.

Over the years she could see him getting some of his happiness back, but it was never as easy as before to see his smile in his shining eyes. His smiles changed… they weren't as unconcerned as they were before.

That night had built a strong bond between them, one that couldn't be broken. After his ordeal in the plexiglas coffin had come another time when she had been there for him and had held him to give him the sense of security he had so desperately needed. It had been the same… no words had been needed between them. She had simply been there for him, like she had been years back and he had thanked her silently with his eyes as words had failed him, and he had finally moved on and got his life back. She was so proud of him for finding his place in life. Finding the words to describe her happiness that she still had him was impossible.

The sun had gone down minutes before without her realizing it. She would complete her search tomorrow. With a deep sigh she picked up all the photos she collected for the album and closed the box. The only thing besides the photos she wanted to keep out of the box was the teddy bear. For one moment she just held the stuffed animal close to her chest. The bear would stay with her like her little boy would always stay with her.

With a smile on her face she cuddled the teddy and closed the door of the room to call her son before he started his shift. She just wanted to say that she loved him. Some habits are just so hard to break.

**_The End_**

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A/N: Thank you all for reading my story :-) I would like to hear what you think, so please leave a review. If you would like to know how I came to write this story check out my profile :-D

Thank you _Smokey_ for your beta work. What would I do without you? :-)


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